The Blues woes were compounded with news that Sam Warburton dislocated a finger in the opening exchanges. The lethal Cuthbert raced over for a first half hat-trick to set the Blues on to their way. Even when losing Lewis Jones to the sin bin seven minutes from time, Phil Davies’s side were still in the ascendancy with a 30-24 lead.
However Irish powerhouse Tony Buckley was driven over the tryline a minute after the Blues were a man down. Leigh Halfpenny banged over a penalty to reduce the deficit to a single point but the home side put their poor Aviva Premiership form behind them to record a rare victory this season.
Super-sub Danny Cipriani was Sale’s hero as Sale overturned a 27-12 deficit.The Sharks were trailing by 15 points when Cipriani, entered the fray after 49 minutes. He went on to score one try and created another as Bryan Redpath’s men went on to snatch a stunning victory.
Former Cardiff fly half Nick MacLeod kept the scoreboard ticking over in the first half with four successful penalties in response to Cuthbert’s lethal finishing prowess. He ran in his first two tries within a three-minute spell Blues hooker Marc Breeze danced his way through a fragile Sale defence to get Cuthbert over for his hat-trick try on 36 minutes.
Macleod’s fourth penalty on the stroke of half-time made it 24-12 but Halfpenny landed another long-range effort five minutes into the second half to restore his side’s 15-point lead.
That facilitated Cipriani’s introduction and within six minutes he had crossed the whitewash. Halfpenny hit back when he struck over another long-range penalty to keep his side in the driving seat.
But Cipriani’s long pass was gathered by replacement centre Johnny Leota, who got Jennings over for a debut try and Miller’s first goal of the afternoon cut the gap to six points.
Then came the sin-binning of Jones and Sale seized their chance to produce a storming finish to deny the Blues an away victory which at one stage looked a mere formality.
